Floating licenses and affiliate program

I am so glad you are made out of money, why don't you send $100,000 my way since you can afford to throw it away so easily. Or just STFU and understand that not everyone has $60 per year per key to blow on a virtual tabletop. That's $360 a year for me to run my average game.

When I suggested floating licenses and an affiliate program it was not so I could spend a lot of money on smite works, it was so I could use my connections to help spread the word about the application and maybe bring some fresh meat to the Fantasy Grounds world. But since you are so narrow minded that you can not think outside of you limited box... you know what f**k it. I am done with being nice to you.....

Smite works seams to be making the same choices that WotC is making, and honestly i hope both companies tank from it.

Why are you having a hissy fit?

I appreciate you don't like the idea. Nobody is threatening you with any mandatory change. You want a way to make the game free for players or people you introduce to the game. Smite Works wants a way to keep track of who plays and make sure they all contribute financially to the project. There is no insult here and no need for antagonism.

You have eloquently and vociferously expressed your objection, even derision, for the plan as you see it. Don't take it personally. Remember this is on top of what we have now, not instead. I think they are trying to see if the idea can be accommodated. Give them a chance to talk this out without over reacting. If there's no common ground we haven't lost anything.

Share your objections. Send them a private message with improvements or alternate plans. Please don't swear at me or anyone else here - this is too nice a board.

Sigurd

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Right. Which part of option is the problem here? Don't like the option don't use it. That is how simple it is.

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Originally Posted by Oberoten

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Right. Which part of option is the problem here? Don't like the option don't use it. That is how simple it is.

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Agreed, I don't plan to use it. I have everyone on my staff testing alternatives now, because we need a tabletop to promote. Unfortunately none of them are as flashy as Fantasy Grounds, but apparently I am the only one here (locally, not on the fantasy grounds forum) that thinks the 3D dice are invaluable.

I know it appears that I am alone on my opinions here, but I know for a fact that people agree with the way I feel. There are Literally hundreds of people (237) to be exact that play in our rotating games, and out of those I have convinced 4 people to buy Fantasy Grounds. I can start a poll on the site to find out why but I can give a solid guess that it will have something to do with floating license keys. As all of them pay a monthly subscription fee on one of our sites, and most of them had no issues dolling out the cash for Battlegrounds (A VTT that is just not an option for me, I don't like it one bit, and have no reasons for not liking other than a simple fact that I don't like it).

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Originally Posted by Sigurd

Share your objections. Send them a private message with improvements or alternate plans. Please don't swear at me or anyone else here - this is too nice a board.

Sigurd

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Look, I cant afford to break anymore fingers or monitors right now. These monitors cost me about $300 each, and my fingers I just set myself, but the pain is more than I really want to deal with at the moment.

I'm really not trying to get something for nothing here. And I even understand the analogy of $30 a month is less than what I spend on lunch in a week (its less than what I spend on lunch each day). In fact, it's about what I spend on cigarettes in a day, and those are doing nothing but killing me.

And I could probably write around a 300 page report on floating licenses, the various ways to handle them, the pros and cons for a company, the costs, functions, and analysis. But why would I? What do I get out of it? Are you going to pay me $75 an hour to do the research and write the report? Is Smite Works? Is anyone else here? The answer is no.... I could go on, but I am about to punch my last monitor, and the store doesnt open for another 3 hours.

Would the following idea be workable?

1. The Lite license is linked to a Fantasy Grounds account and anyone (the player or a third party such as a GM) can pay for credits to that account.

2. When a Lite license connects to a Full license the Fantasy Grounds account server is checked and a nominal amount is deducted permitting play within the next 24 hour period. Let's say 2$.

3. The first hour of the 24 hour period is free, after which the 2$ is deducted. This allows for situations where connectivity problems kill off the session, but is restrictive enough to make it frustrating for any group to use this to get round paying in the long term. It will also allow for short demos in any ruleset.

4. When the price of a Lite license has been paid through the player's account they get a registration number for that Lite license, and no longer need to pay to connect. They have effectively paid for their Lite license in instalments.

5. The option to upgrade from a Lite license to a Full license is always available.

This would seem to lower the barrier to trying out the program to an acceptable level. It also removes the other current obstacle that we've not touched on yet in this thread which is that some prospective buyers are put off because they don't want to spend the full amount on a GM license without playing first, but don't want to waste their money on a Lite license that they can't convert.

One thing that might cause a problem here is that any credit card charges would be applied against each amount paid in, which would reduce the profit to SmiteWorks. I don't know whether linking this to PayPal would get round this issue.

Spyke

I've realised that the account server would also need to check the player's IP address to prevent users hopping between multiple accounts to play for free.

What are the issues around this?

Spyke

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Originally Posted by Spyke

I've realised that the account server would also need to check the player's IP address to prevent users hopping between multiple accounts to play for free.

What are the issues around this?

Spyke

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Well just for starters, we went from paying around $30 a month for the games I run to around $460 a month give or take. But other than that.... who am I kidding I didn't honestly consider it any further than that.

Edit: and now that I have sent Spyke a PM, and thought about it a little more. How much would it cost for my company to purchase Fantasy Grounds? $100,000? We would of course include a royalties package in the purchase for Smite Works.

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Originally Posted by unerwünscht

Well just for starters, we went from paying around $30 a month for the games I run to around $460 a month give or take.

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True, it doesn't work so well for you, but you're looking for a model where you can run FG sessions where the licenses are free to the player, and where you're expecting an unusually high volume of players. You'd need to GM 38 sessions with 6 players in each during the month to hit the $460 vs $30 comparison between the models.

At an average of 4 hours a session that would be 152 hours of GMing each month, or 19 man-days. You indicate above that you're charging a subscription for membership of your rotating games, so presumably this means that the players are paying for your time as GM.

As you say, what it looks like you need is a licensed VT engine to support your own sites' activities.

Spyke

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Originally Posted by Spyke

True, it doesn't work so well for you, but you're looking for a model where you can run FG sessions where the licenses are free to the player, and where you're expecting an unusually high volume of players. You'd need to GM 38 sessions with 6 players in each during the month to hit the $460 vs $30 comparison between the models.

At an average of 4 hours a session that would be 152 hours of GMing each month, or 19 man-days. You indicate above that you're charging a subscription for membership of your rotating games, so presumably this means that the players are paying for your time as GM.

As you say, what it looks like you need is a licensed VT engine to support your own sites' activities.

Spyke

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That's about right. What you are overlooking is that I have 6 people here in the office that each run games for our "geek" site. And I am not looking to make the license free to the player. I am looking to give the player a free seat for awhile till they can make the honest choice to purchase a license on their own (with luck a full license, and more floating keys).

But seeing your point is why I have offered to actually purchase Fantasy Grounds. I will have no problems selling the 3,000 licenses that I will need to make my money back, and I would be very surprised if Smite Works sells 3,000 keys a year. So it could be a better move for them in the end.